"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Names

Nicharchus, Greek Anthology 11.17 (tr. W.R. Paton):

Stephanus was poor and a gardener, but now having got on well and become rich, he has suddenly turned into Philostephanus, adding four fine letters to the original Stephanus, and in due time will be Hippocratippiades or, owing to his extravagance, Dionysiopeganodorus. But in all the market he is still Stephanus.